Kidnapped and a Daring Escape (45 page)

    
"You were right," chuckles André. "They want ten euros a day.
Should I be honored by such a high price?"

    
"Just joke now. You will no longer by tomorrow," he grunts. "What
happened at lunch is nothing of what they’ll do to you if you don’t pay."

    
"Who said I wasn’t going to pay?"

    
"You just sounded like that."

    
"No, no, you can let them know that payment will be made one way
or another." Let them interpret the meaning of this as they wish. He has
little doubt that Pietro will pass on the message.

    
To pass the time, he decides to keep an hourly diary. He asks Pietro
where he can get writing material.

    
"From the chief guard at the office downstairs."

    
The chief guard gives him one sheet of paper and a stump of a pencil
and tells him that any letter will have to be given to him open for vetting.

    
One sheet is rather little to record what has already happened. So he
sets out writing down his experiences in his tiniest handwriting, using
little pressure to make the lead tip last. He hides the folded sheet inside
the cover of his pillow.

    
However, when by the end of the day, he still has not been summoned
to see a lawyer, he begins to wonder. He is certain that, if not Bianca,
then Carlo would have taken action to get him a lawyer. Maria would
have passed on his request to her husband. So why has no lawyer shown
up yet? Could the teenager have been right when he said that
Commissario
Farnese has the reputation for softening up her suspects and one
way of doing this is to put obstacles in front of the lawyer, such as a
needless transfer of the suspect to another prison?

    
His first night in the prison cell leaves a weird impression. There is no
quiet. His cell mate is snoring in loud bursts with short periods of labored
breathing in between. But André could have coped with that. What is
more disconcerting are the moans and occasional cries of other inmates
and the intermittent rattle of metal coming from the cells, transmitted by
the metal staircase and corridor and amplified by the high vault of the
center core. He did not notice the metallic sounds much during the day
when they were partially submerged in the hum of voices.

    
He lets images of Bianca float through his mind. He sees her expressive eyes, her smile, her animated facial expressions when she speaks,
her hand movements that underscore what she says; her silhouette in the
moonlight at that enchanted lake when she squeezed out the water from
her hair; her face asleep, relaxed. It is early morning before sleep offers
relief.

* * *

Wednesday morning, shortly after nine o’clock, Maria rushes up to
Bianca’s room, all agitated.

    
"There is a
Professore
Visconti downstairs. He insists on seeing you.
He claims to be your
fidanzato
. What do you want me to do? Send him
away?"

    
That is in fact Bianca’s instinctive reaction. But then she changes her
mind. Sooner or later she will have to face him. "No, bring him up, but
please ask Carlo to come up also and stay at the door, just in case."

    
Two minutes later, Carlo ushers Franco into the room and then
remains standing under the open door.

    
Franco turns to him and says in a condescending tone: "Dear
signore
,
I ask you to have the courtesy to give us privacy. Miss Pacelli and I want
to talk alone."

    
"No, Carlo, please stay here. I do not want to be left alone with
Professore
Visconti."

    
"Bianca, we must talk in private. What we need to talk about is not for
just anybody’s ears. How can you show such an unreasonable attitude
toward me? Toward your own fiancé? I only desire what is best for you
and for us both and for our families."

    
"Carlo remains, or I will ask him to remove you from this room. In
fact, I want a witness to what I have to say."

    
"It is thus as I have feared. It indicates that you are in need of urgent
psychiatric help, or else you would not perceive me as your enemy —"

    
Bianca interrupts him: "Who gave you my address?"

    
"That is hardly of any relevance. The important thing is that I am now
with you to provide you with the moral support that you so lacked these
last three days."

    
"I can guess that it was
Commissario
Farnese. She had no right to give
you my address."

    
"She too only wants the best outcome for you, so she graciously
acceded to my modest request —"

    
"And she was also the one who advised you and my father to file a
denuncia
." It is only a guess.

    
He seems stunned for a moment. "How can you know that?"

    
"Because my father admitted it," she lies, experiencing a small
triumph that he fell into her trap.

    
"But don’t you see that this was the only responsible course of action
to get you away from the corrupting influence of that man? All of us,
your mother, your father, the
Commissario
, Dr. Zanni, and foremost of
all, I myself have come to the irrefutable conclusion that this man had to
be removed to give you space for the treatment you are so desperately in
need of. That only then would you again have the ability to find your own
inner self, free yourself from the delusions you currently live under as a
result of the ordeal that he put you through so cunningly."

    
Bianca decides to let him talk until he runs out of arguments.

    
"We all understand that nobody can be expected to come out of an
experience like this without deep trauma. Nobody blames you. It is only
normal. We are all in deep sympathy with you. We are on your side. We
only desire what is best for you and when this is all over, when you are
healed again and have put everything behind you, then you and I can
again come together and plan our future. Don’t you see that this is in your
best interest? Don’t you think you should heed the wise counsel of those
who know you and care for you?" He looks at her with a fatherly
expression.

    
"Are you finished? Have you said everything you wanted to say? …
Yes? Then you listen to me while I will have my say. First, I am not
delusional. I am of a saner mind than I was before the tour to Colombia.
Then I was delusional, blinded by your expertise, by the way you could
express yourself, enamored by the prospect of marrying into your family,
but also blind to your deception — no,
Professore
Visconti, I let you talk.
You now let me talk. In Colombia, I got to know another Franco, and
after the kidnapping learned what André had discovered. I know who is
behind the kidnapping. I know that you —"

    
He opens his mouth to interrupt her again. His face has turned red.

    
Raising her voice she preempts him: "You either listen to me without
interruption or I will ask Carlo to remove you from this room." She
suddenly feels powerful. "I know that you paid the kidnappers 200,000
euros as an advance. I also know that the kidnappers would not have
freed me after receiving the ransom and so do you. I’m only alive
because André rescued me against all odds —"

    
"Don’t you see that you are delusional to make such absurd accusations?"

    
"Shut up," she shouts over his words. "You are delusional if you think
that you will get away with it. But I’ll let you stew in your own mess. Our
engagement is finished. You can ask the man at the Alcazar Bar with
whom you made the final arrangement for the kidnapping to return the
engagement ring he stole from me. I will never marry you. You will not
touch a cent of whatever I may inherit. You are financially ruined and
well so."

    
"Your father will cut you off."

    
Bianca laughs. "So what? It’s only people like you who need other
people’s money to survive. And now, get out of my room. We are
finished."

    
She turns away from him. Although she feels strong, she is shaking
inside. Carlo’s stern warning startles her: "
Professore
, don’t touch
Bianca. She has asked you to leave and so do I. If you don’t I will call the
local policeman to remove you from my
pensione
."

    
"This is not the end, Bianca," she hears Franco. It is more a hiss than
a normal voice. The door closes and the muffled sound of steps reach her
from the staircase. She starts to breathe freely, filling her lungs to the full
and exhaling slowly. Her trembling slowly ebbs away. Her heartbeat
slows. She feels proud of herself. She knows, André would be proud of
her. And now she even has a witness to Franco admitting that he was the
one who filed the
denuncia
and that Farnese was the source in the
Questura
that advised them.

    
A few minutes later she goes looking for Carlo. When he sees her he
says: "
Signorina
Bianca, that was very brave how you confronted that
man."

    
"Thank you,
Signor
Carlo. Did you hear how he admitted that he made
the
denuncia
?"

    
"Yes, and that
Commissario
Farnese advised him to do it."

    
"It may well be that I need you to testify on that."

    
"You can count on me."

* * *

After breakfast, the guards herd them into the showers in small groups of
ten people. The water turns out to be hot. The sharp spray feels good.
André notices that both Fausto and Massimo are in his group. He is
curious how they engineered that since their cell is on the opposite
upstairs corridor. Is it another intimidating gesture?

    
The morning passes slowly. He exercises again and then writes more
in his diary. The failure of a lawyer showing up begins to worry him. The
threats by Massimo he thinks he should be able to manage, but without
representation he may be stuck on remand for weeks.

    
Lunch comes. He queues up again. As he gets close to the counter,
Massimo forces himself into the space behind him and hisses: "Got the
dope, man?"

    
"We must talk. See me in my cell," André murmurs, as he gets his
plate filled.

    
"No more talking. Pass the dope when we sit."

    
André chooses an empty space toward the end of a table. Massimo
wags his head, and the man on André’s left at the end of the table rises
and finds another empty spot, while the tall fellow takes his seat.

    
"Pass the money under the table," Massimo mouths from the corner
of his mouth.

    
"I have no money," André replies in a normal voice.

    
Everybody looks at them, even the guards.

    
"That’s too bad, man," hisses Massimo, while swiping André’s plate
from the table. At the same time André feels a piercing pain in his left
upper arm. A split second later his right hand swings out like a blade and
hits Massimo’s throat. The man falls back without a sound, out cold.
Fausto, a table over, shoots up, but a guard blocks his path.

    
Two guards now approach André, their batons drawn. He rises slowly
and raises his hands above his head. He sees the handle of a spoon
sticking in his arm.

    
One of the guards yells: "Come away from the table and keep walking
to the door."

    
André does as told. At the door, he is handcuffed, after which a guard
rips out the spoon and pockets it.

    
"I demand to see a nurse or a doctor," André says aloud so that
everybody can hear it.

    
"We decide what happens here," the guard shouts.

    
"I will not take another step until I get medical attention."